Here's a bold statement that really isn't so bold  despite everything you're reading, investors really aren't skittish about buying Facebook stock. The recent rash of hyperventilation about the social network's fundamentals isn't going to result in any Facebook shares getting left on the table when the company starts selling shares sometime in the next couple of months.

So can we please stop pretending like this somehow might not be the biggest tech IPO in the history of forever?

First, a disclaimer: I won't be buying any Facebook shares myself. For ethical and contractual reasons, I don't own any tech stocks at all (for financial reasons, I don't own any stocks whatsoever, not even as part of a 401k  yep, my retirement years are shaping up to be an adventure). In short, I don't care if you buy Facebook or not.

Back to the matter at hand. A funny thing has happened on the road to Facebook's initial public offering. First came the avalanche of hype promoting the company when it filed its long-awaited S-1 with the SEC last week. But now there's a growing counter-avalanche of counter-hype that says Facebook is actually a deeply flawed enterprise and only suckers are going to buy shares.

Or is all that talk just a lot of gamesmanship and chatter to pass the time as Wall Street's piranhas wait for the fatted calf that is Facebook to wade into their bend of the river?

It's probably a bit of both. Now that the company has divulged a lot of its internal data to the SEC, there are real reasons to be concerned about Facebook's future. Here are a few that have been cited in the press:

Facebook's growth is slowing and the company's not making as much per user as it will need to if it's going to provide the kinds of Apple-icious returns people demand from a ginormous Silicon Valley profit-generator.

Based on his letter to investors in the company's S-1 filing earlier this month, Zuckerberg's stomach for putting Facebook profit ahead of other concerns may be suspect.

And what's really worrying is that Zuck has never endured a colossal failure as an entrepreneur. No, seriously  this is being cited as a possible objection to investing in Facebook.

So, yes, there serious (and not so serious) issues with Facebook. The company has some warts. No stock is a sure thing. It is always a good thing to kick the tires before buying into a company. But here's a prediction: None of this stuff is going to matter when Facebook shares become available. People are going to be elbowing each other aside to buy.

If investors shied away from risk to the extent that some of the fainting-couch habitué in the business press are claiming they're doing with regards to Facebook, nobody would ever buy anything and there wouldn't be a stock market (or maybe it would consist of one company, Apple).

Seriously, if you're scared of buying Facebook, as "can't-miss" a new stock as we've seen in years, stick to buying T-bills.

Vanishingly few companies come along that have the upside of a Facebook. This is a startup that's proven itself to be profitable, is raking in billions just a few short years after launching, and has accomplished that rarest of feats  it's "won" the battle for a crucial, broad, emerging technology space, identity, much like that other one-time wunderkind Google won search several years earlier and Microsoft won the PC operating system battle before that.

Theoretically, Facebook could implode, but let's be serious  this is a company that employs some of the smartest people in technology, is helmed by a guy who just might be Steve Jobs 2.0, and currently has nearly as many adherents as the Catholic Church.

This is a company that's going to have far more users than shares available for the foreseeable future. Think about that.

Like Apple, Google, and Amazon, Facebook is a company that sends strong signals that it will keep figuring out ways to reel in customers for years to come, as often as not surprising us with how it does so along the way. There's a reason Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt listed that quartet of firms in his famous "Gang of Four" speech at the D9 Conference last May.

And just in case you still have doubts about Facebook's attractiveness to investors, we recently learned from science that social networking is more addictive than alcohol and tobacco. So basically, the world's premier provider of legal crack is about to start selling shares ... and we're supposed to believe it's going to have a tough time finding buyers?

Whatever. Those shares are going to be bought in record time. All that stuff about how scared everybody is is mostly a lot of filler being generated to pass the time.

About the Author

Damon Poeter got his start in journalism working for the English-language daily newspaper The Nation in Bangkok, Thailand. He covered everything from local news to sports and entertainment before settling on technology in the mid-2000s. Prior to joining PCMag, Damon worked at CRN and the Gilroy Dispatch. He has also written for the San Francisco Ch... See Full Bio

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